Thriving Loss

There is a tendency in our society to talk about healing grief as if it were a physical wound. It reduces grief to nothing more than an illness to be cured. Our objective is to heal as quickly as possible and get back to normal. This approach has failed us in our understanding of grief and made us miss the real nature of it. It has created a society that is reluctant to fully express grief and by doing so we try to heal but really keep our grief inside of us, instead of letting it go. Transformation is the real nature of grief. It shows us that we don´t need to heal anything. We can take our grief and change it into something more, something better for ourselves. It means that not only do we let go of our grief but we gain something far greater in return. We become like caterpillars entering the chrysalis stage. By going into the darkness of our grief and accepting it rather than fighting against it, we can emerge from grief, brighter and lighter than ever before. Transforming grief and thriving after loss means you become aware that life is short. It is the awareness that life is incredibly precious and we have a responsibility to live fully and die without regrets. Transforming grief and thriving loss means changing fundamental aspects of your life. It means acknowledging and experiencing deep and sometimes painful emotions. It means facing demons and letting them go. It means discovering your hidden dreams about what you really want for your life. Transforming grief can be uncomfortable. Yet in grief we are already uncomfortable. So rather than running from it, transforming grief requires that you accept it and explore it. It takes courage to thrive loss. It is far easier to survive loss and continue living as you did before. There is a tendency when we lose a loved one to tap into unresolved past painful experiences. If we don´t take the time to acknowledge these and let them go, we stay forever trapped by them like the caterpillar stuck inside its chrysalis. It also requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves and become aware of behavior that doesn´t work in our best interests and change it. By choosing to transform grief you create a statement of intent. A statement that says I deserve the best for myself. Transforming grief can increase happiness and increase health. It can give you the opportunity to find your true purpose and fulfill your wildest dreams. It allows you to live fully and thrive loss. Ask yourself this: Do you wish to live your life as a caterpillar? Or are you prepared to metamorphose into a butterfly and experience everything that life truly has to offer? These were the same questions I asked myself when my brother died. The death of my brother was the most profound and painful experience of my life. I have never hurt so much. The pain was overwhelming at times. Yet it set me on a journey I could only have dreamed of. I didn’t want to just cope, heal or recover from his death. I wanted to transform. I wanted to take it and challenge it so that I could turn it from the worst thing that ever happened to me into the best. So I embraced my loss and threw myself into the whirlwind of grief. I wanted to find a way to create a new, better self shaped by this experience. I wanted to find a way in which to keep my loved one in my life on a daily basis and truly understand the words written by Henry Scott Holland: “Death is nothing at all.” This book represents my effort to share with you what I’ve learned, experienced, and shared successfully with others. It’s an invitation for you to come into the world that I now live ina world where I’ve let go of the grief and pain of loss. I’ve challenged societal beliefs around death and bereavement and created my own. I’ve created an ongoing relationship with my brother that allows me to feel so close to him that I don’t even miss him. I can see the gifts of both his life and his death grow greater with every passing day. And that is what I call thriving loss. When you thrive loss you come from a place of growth knowing that everything is ok. This brings you peace and you no longer question what you could change or what could have been different if your loved one hadn’t died. You accept the challenge of loss and use it to look deeply at your life. You accept what it means to live after loss, and create a purpose to your life that may not have been there before, or deepen one that already is. You embrace the pain of loss and not only allow yourself to experience it but allow it to create positive change. Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying says that you can live even more intensely because of your loss, offering tribute to your loved one who died and so giving their death a deeper meaning. You live both for yourself and for your loved one. They still are a part of your life and you have found a way to continue your relationship with them, letting go of the physical and retaining the spiritual and ultimately the love. Memories and this new relationship bring peace, happiness and comfort to you and allow you to see the gifts of loss. As you read this you may ask yourself if it is possible to achieve all this. Maybe the darkness of your loss overshadows your hope. Maybe there is so much pain that peace seems impossible. Maybe there is confusion and numbness that creates only blankness. I ask you to trust me. It is possible. I know because I have done it. I’m not the only one. Others have done it too. Throughout this book you will read stories of other people who have transformed their grief and who are living fully and thriving loss. Don’t just believe my words, believe theirs. Over the last nine years since the death of my brother I have been on a journey to understand grief and loss. I’ve studied it, researched it and worked with it. Whilst it is true that everyone grieves in their own way and in their own time, I have never been truly happy with this statement. As I journeyed through my own grief and that of others I started to see a pattern developing. I started to see why some people navigated grief more quickly than others. It allowed me to truly understand the helpful and unhelpful strategies people adopt when dealing with grief. I also identified the challenges that stop people from truly transforming grief. This exploration led me to the “Tree of Transformation.” Developed through research, experience and nature, it’s a unique process that shows you a way to understand and grow your own individual tree that enables you to transform grief, live fully, and thrive loss. With this knowledge you will be able to move forward and find peace in less time than you thought you could.